The Town’s Charter

Most of the English towns grew up on the land belonging to the king. The king was too powerful for the townspeople to begin an open struggle against him. Unlike the many towns on the continent of Europe which gained their independence by means of bloody wars and uprisings, in England, as a rule, the townspeople came to terms with the king. The merchants and craftsmen agreed to pay for the use of land in money instead of services. Bit by bit the townspeople gained other rights in exchange for money payments.

In return for the money paid, the king would grant the townspeople a charter. This was a written agreement listing the things the townspeople could do without asking permis­sion from the king. Some towns paid a large sum of money for the charter only once, others had to make a certain pay­ment every year.

The charter stated that the townsmen were free from the services they had formerly rendered and they had the right to choose their own council with a chairman at the head who was called the mayor. The charter granted to London in 1215 stated: “Know you that we have granted to our citi­zens of our city of London that they may elect for them­selves a mayor of themselves every year who shall be faithful to us … and that it shall be lawful to them to remove him at the end of the year, and substitute another if they so wish, or retain the same man.” The town council made laws and punished those who disobeyed them. Now the townsmen had their own judges who administered justice in the town and their own officials who collected the dues for the king.

The townsmen were also allowed to carry on trade, and to hold markets and fairs. Here is an extract from the charter to Portsmouth granted in 1194: “Know you that the citizens of Portsmouth have every week in the year on one day in the week, on Thursday, a market with all the liberties and free customs which our citizens of Win­chester or Oxford or others of our lands have…” “And we have established and given and granted a fair to continue, once a year, for fifteen days..

Many towns gained the right of free trade. The charter granted to Oxford in 1156 says that the citizens of Oxford “shall be quit of toll and passage and all the customs throughout all England and Normandy by land and water, by the coast of the sea”…

Such charters were often won not only from the king, but from other owners of the town lands too. If a baron or an abbot of a neighbouring monastery was in need ofmoney he would sell his rights to the townsmen. But from the great mopasteries near which towns had grown up in many places, charters were won, as a rule, with great difficulty. The histories of such towns were marked with bitter conflicts, sometimes with armed uprisings of the townsmen. A chron­icler wrote in 1327 that the townsfolk of Bury supported by the villeins of the surrounding villages, stormed the monastery and set up a town commune. It took the abbot six months to suppress the commune and re-establish his power over the town.

In the 12th century many English towns such as London, Canterbury, Dover, Lincoln, Nottingham, Norwich, Oxford, Newcastle, Southampton, Bristol and others had charters and exercised self-government. The king granted many priv­ileges to the capita] of the country. The Londoners took over the local government not only of the city itself but also of the whole county of Middlesex in which a consid­erable part of the city was situated. They appointed a sher­iff and a judge and collected all the dues which formerly had been paid by the inhabitants of the county to the king. In return, every year the Londoners paid 300 pounds sterl­ing to the king. Besides, court trials for Londoners were held only in London. They were also released from military service and were granted the right of free trade throughout England. All these privileges favoured the growth of the capital and in the 12th century it became one of the greatest centres of trade in Europe. By the end of the 13th century almost all towns of any size, except a few under monastic rule, had won a certain measure of self- government.

The most important right gained by the townsmen was freedom. At first when villeins ran away to the towns the lord had the right to demand the villein’s return. But soon the growing towns felt the lack of labourers and eventually they began to ignore the lord’s orders. Gradually the towns’ charters made it a rule that a serf who had run away from his lord could become free after having lived a year and a day in town. The landlord was forced to regard all runaway £erfs as free citizens of the town.

Here is how the charter of 1157 goes: “I confirm to the citizens that if any remain in my city of Lincoln for a year and a day without challenge from any claimant and pay the customs of the city. .. he shall remain peacefully in the city of Lincoln as my free man.”

Thus, in the 12th-13th centuries the townsmen of many English towns became free. They became free from the old feudal obligations and they themselves were responsible for the order and government in the town.

Liberation from feudal power sped up the growth of towns and many of them became important centres of crafts and trade.